Night Life
by Beverly McIntyre
Summary: A Subreality Cafe story with Broken Palisades tie-ins. My first venture into that genre. Dakota's first experience in the place where all the fictive's hang out.


Disclaimer: The X-People belong to Marvel. The Subreality Cafe belongs to, uh, Kielle, I think. I also disclaim knowledge that I supposedly know what I'm doing here. This is a nonprofit work of fiction done by a rather hyper mind. Dakota belongs to me. [And he'll even acknowledge it! I must be doing something right!]

Questions/Comments/And other various thoughts: bkittle@creighton.edu

Note: This takes place some time before Sabia's wonderful piece: A Bar of One's Own. Go read it!

Also, this was part of Susan Crites' challenge to use 61 odd lines in a fic. I got ambitious and decided to use all 61 lines or such *in order*. Obviously, this story doesn't have all the lines in it. I may make a little series and finish up the list, but here's the first oh, 15 or so.

_this is what somebody is thinking_

**this is an audible sound**

* * *

Subreality Cafe: Night Life  
by: Beverly McIntyre

He paused outside the curious building, looking at the structure. _This is where everybody goes during down time?!?_ His tan hiking boots firmly set into the small puddle at the end of the walkway leading to the cafe. He sighed as he looked at the Bouncer standing sentinel at the front doors. 

Dakota had always had trouble getting past bouncers. They usually didn't like him for some odd reason. _Maybe it's the fact you've put many over your knee and spanked them for not doing their jobs right? Naaah. That couldn't be it. Though I think there are some Bouncers out there who like that sorta thing._ He shuddered. 

Figuring standing outside looking at the door was getting him nowhere rather quickly, he started forward, trying not to smell of uncertainty. Bouncers could smell that a mile away. Striding up as confident as he could, Dakota tried his best to look fictivish. _If I don't get in, Lucky will have to entertain the ladies by himself. I can go back to playing in a sketched out story and-Waittaminute! I'd better get in there!_

He strode forward and was stopped by a muscular arm suddenly appearing at chest level. Dakota looked over at the sunglassed eyes. 

"Problem?" 

The Bouncer eyed him then lowered his arm.

"Thought you were a Writer trying to get passed me." 

Dakota nodded in non-understanding and continued forward. _Guess trying to truly look like a fictive makes me look like a Writer. Hmmm. This could be a useless fact._ He made it through the door and a few steps inside . . .

. . . and stopped in his tracks. He walked into the maelstrom of chaos. There were so many fictives here, jostling, mingling, and arguing with what looked like themselves. Dakota blinked a few times, trying to get the inherent confusion of the situation to settle. The sheer numbers of Rogues, Storms, Cyclopses, and Wolverines was staggering. _What the hell have I just walked into?_

Dakota's thoughts were interrupted by being jostled by a passing White Queen. He looked down at her tear-streaked face.

"Are you all right?" His brow furrowed in concern. 

"I'm fine," she sniffed. "My Writer decided to have Jubilee commit suicide so I can show a softer side."

"Oh. Did it work?" The White Queen gave him a withering glare.

"You tell me."

"Um, well . . ." She sighed as she turned away from him.

"Well, this day was a total waste of make-up," she huffed as she stalked away. Dakota watched her move toward a dim corner where other mournful fictives were steadily drinking themselves into a stupor. He shrugged at her retreating form. He knew there was little he could have said to make a difference anyway. He was just glad his Writer had not gotten into the show-his/her-soft-side-through-somebody else's-death kick. _Yet,_ he reminded himself.

A knot of Deadpools, Wolverines, and Cables who had been playing poker exploded into a ball of flying fists, feet, and teeth. Obviously the poker game they had been playing just went rather sour. Dakota's eyes widened as he suddenly found himself alone on the floor with the tangle of explosive action surging toward him. Cursing in his native tongue, he backpedalled away. The flurry of fists, feet, and teeth continued to follow him until he fell through a pair of swinging doors. The knot of action stopped just in front of the threshold before moving away. _That can't be good . . . _

**THUNK.** Dakota oddly knew that sound. It was a heavy, sharp piece of metal imbedding itself into a thick slab of wood. He slowly turned toward the source of the sound.

A man dressed in white, red-splattered clothing stood behind a large cutting board with a _very_ large cleaver wobbling atop it. A big smile spread across the Cook's face.

"Make yourself at home! Clean my kitchen."

* * *

Rogue had finally spotted Dakota when a circular spot of about 50 feet had cleared out around him. He stood out like a tree branch sticking out of the center of a placid pond. But the pond didn't stay placid for long. The brawling poker players were heading straight for him. She heard him him curse in some language she didn't understand, she could probably figure out what he had said as he backpedalled away. The 25-foot radius of space stayed around him until he fell through the swinging double doors.

Rogue gasped. _He fell inta the kitchen. Ah don't believe he fell inta the kitchen . . ._ Every ficitve knew how possessive the Cook was about his kitchen. A Bishop had disappeared after storming in to demand his hamburger done right. After that, nobody touched the food that came out of the kitchen. 

Rogue quickly scooted off her barstool and scrambled toward the still swinging double doors. _Lordy, Ah hope he doesn't end up as the main course . . ._ Rogue sped up at that thought. She thought about flying there, but with the crowd in here tonight, she would probably be plucked right out of the air or impeded much the same.

She made it halfway to the doors before a pair of blurs sped out of the crowd and wrapped themselves around her legs. Rogue stumbled to a stop.

"Mommy! Mommy!"

"Mama, we want some ice cream!"

Rogue's eyes widened as she looked down at the leg-hugging twins with mousy brown hair. _Who are these kids and why are they calling me Mom?_ Obviously, another version of her was these children's mama, but she wasn't her. She also needed to be somewhere else at the moment. 

Rogue sighed and looked for the likely candidate. After ten minutes and a willful avoidance of a dominatrix Rogue, she still hadn't found the two rascals actual mother and they were slowly cutting off the circulation in her legs. _These kids're stronger then they look._ Their plaintive cries for more ice cream hadn't stopped either and she was starting to draw stares from some of the more matronly fictives.

She spotted a version of herself sitting at a nearby table, staring dreamily into a Gambit's eyes. Rogue sighed. _Well, that's better than nothing._ With a stiff-legged wobble-walk, Rogue made her way over to the table with add-on children still teneciously hugging her legs. She cleared her throat to catch the attention of either occupant of the table; neither looked up. Rogue tried again.

"Ah-HEM." Her counterpart shot a quick glare at her before looking back at Gambit.

"Don't bother me. I'm living happily ever after." 

_Ah hope Ah never get this bad . . ._

"Well, every fairytale ending needs a coupla kids," Rogue said as she reached down and plucked both leg-huggers off of her. She plopped the twins down on the laps of her astonished counterpart and her Gambit. She smiled swetly. "By the way, they'd like some ice cream."

At the mention of the craved dessert, the twins once again clammered for it, louder and with a couple of stomach growls thrown in for punctuation. Rogue slipped away in the ensuing chaos and nearly sprinted to the kitchen doors.

**FOOM.** Rogue didn't know what that was, but it did not sound good coming out of the kitchen. **Fsssssss.**

Reminding herself of the Bishop who had stormed in, Rogue carefully opened the doors. She blinked at what she found. Dakota wasn't tressed up and ready to be popped in the rather large oven nor was he roasting on a spit over an open flame. He was standing next to the Cook, chatting amicably. He had his arms folded across his chest and was standing next to the Cook, who was getting his range top ready.

"-then you put all that on top of a round of frybread. Serve it on a paper plate with some heavy-duty plasticware, and there you go, a pow-wow staple: the Indian taco." The Cook nodded and mentally took note on how to make it. Dakota looked up and saw Rogue standing dumbfounded in the doorway. "Heya there, Rogue. Can we help you?"

Rogue just stared in astonishment. "You . . you-you're alive?" How had he besmirched the sanctity of the kitchen and survived?

"Yeeeaahh. I'm temporarily metalbolically abled at the moment, yes. Um, by the way, are you my Rogue?"

"Your Rogue?" She sounded slightly amused.

"Um, the one I know," he amended. Rogue nodded and smiled; Dakota's blood ran cold. That smile was one of those knowing smiles that promised to hang those misspoken words over his head at least for the rest of the night, at most for the rest of his life. If she died before he did, that smile promised she'd come back as a ghost just to haunt him about it. The Cook also must have caught it, for he winked at Rogue as he roughly steered the man with suddenly leaden legs toward the doors. The beginnings of a Chesire grin tugged at the corners of his lips.

"Why don't the two of you go find a nice, cozy table to sit at while I whip up a couple of Indian tacos for you and _your_ Rogue?"

"Wait! She's not mine," he protested slightly. "I just misunderheard myself. She's her own entity in her own right. Honest."

"What? You don't want me now?" Rogue asked playfully as the Cook gave a light shove to clear Dakota out of his kitchen. Dakota stumbled forward slightly.

"No," he answered a little too quickly. So quickly in fact, he realized that she could construe that any way. He'd either be belted across the room (preferable), or she'd continue teasing him. _If there be some higher power, please let her belt me across the room._ "I mean yes. I mean-errr. I mean I do want you."

Dakota watched the slip jump from his lips and hit the floor with a resounding thud. He closed his eyes and sighed, awaiting his airborne fate. "Freud," he growled.

He opened his eyes when he felt no eminant forced flight coming his way. Rogue just stood there with a quirked eyebrow and an indomitable smirk. She may not have been a rocket scientist, but she knew well-endowed women running around in spandex often had Freudian slips littering the floor around them. 

"You don't have much skill at oratory, do ya?"

"Do I look like a freakin' people person?"

"Oooh. An' such a silver tongue you have."

"All the better to dull the taste buds." 

Rogue looked him up and down, from his tightly-jeaned legs, to his toned chest under the white cotton t-shirt to his chisled facial features. He was actually quite a piece of eyecandy, but a gal wouldn't notice it much since he hung around with Longshot.

"Though, you do look like a one-gal-at-a-time guy." He saw the mirth dancing in her eyes. "You free at the moment?"

Dakota was suddenly very interested in trying to find the other X-Men he knew. He had never been quite comfortable with dealing with members of the opposite sex. Rogue snickered at his uncomfort. This was payback, rich and fully enjoyable.

"You lookin' for the others? C'mon. They're this way." She grabbed his hand to lead him and watched him nearly jump right out of his boots. Trying vainly to smother her smile, Rogue pulled him through the crowd toward a table located towards the back where a Storm was sitting with a Longshot, who was playing with a black-furred puppy. Dakota smiled in relief upon recognizing Yankton squirming in Longshot's lap. He squirmed his hand, which was beginning to go numb, out of Rogue's gloved one as they emerged out of the crowd.

"Heya guys. You have no idea how happy I am to see you." Yankton squirmed and rolled to her feet on Longshot's lap. She sniffed the air, making sure it was truly Dakota before hunkering down and pouncing. Dakota caught her right before she pounced right into his groin. He set her down and began to give her a good skritching. "How's my girl, huh? How's my puppy?"

Rogue sighed theatrically and snapped her fingers. "Shoot! He's taken."

Storm looked at Rogue quizzically while Dakota shot a glare at her. Rogue smiled as she shrugged before plopping herself down next to Longshot. Dakota shook his head in dismay and continued to skritch the puppy. Yankton, for her part, was trying to get airborne via her wagging tail.

"So Lucky, how'd you manage to get her in here?"

"Well, I pointed out that they let all sorts of Wolverines and Sabretooths in. Storm pointed out that Yankton's certainly better behaved then some of them, too." Dakota nodded in understanding but still looked slightly confused. "I believe she used the term 'house-broken.'"

"Is there something wrong, Dakota?" ,Storm asked.

"Yeah. I wasn't asking about Yankton; I was talking about Rogue." Longshot snickered, and Storm masterfully hid a smile behind her hand.

"WHAT?!?" Rogue bolted up from her seat. Dakota scooped up Yankton and held her to his chest.

"You wouldn't hit a guy with a cute puppy, would you?"

"No, Ah'd use mah fists . . ."

* * *

Dakota wandered down the back hallway, looking confused and lost. He had managed to slip away from Rogue with a little help from Longshot. His friend had insinuated himself between the slightly miffed woman and Dakota, claiming he was "only getting Yankton out of the center of trouble." While releaving Dakota of his black-furred shield, Longshot had given a reassuring wink. He turned back to Rogue and laid on all the charm he could muster. Rogue, not really expecting that from him, was distracted. Dakota had slipped over to stand behind Storm while Longshot worked his magic. Dakota had leaned over Storm's shoulder and whispered an all-important question in her ear.

"Where's the restroom?"

"Did Rogue scare you that badly?" Storm had tried to keep the smile off of her face.

Dakota snorted derisively. "Hardly. I just shouldn't have had five Cherry 7-Ups before coming here."

"If you say so," Storm had said a little too evenly. Then she had jumped into a series of very complicated directions. Dakota had followed what he did remember and was still no closer to finding it. His bladder started to protest. He deciding to just start opening random doors with the hope of finding the porcelain kingdom of relief.

Opening the door directly to his left, Dakota paused as he looked into a dimly lit room with an androgenous face blinking at him.

"Can I help you?" s/he asked with a voice that gave no indication of gender either.

"Um, I was looking for the restroom."

"It's two doors down. This would be my office." Dakota glanced around the room.

"If you don't mind me saying, this isn't an office- it's hell with flourescent lighting." The Manager shrugged hish shoulders.

"It works. It's the best I can get at the moment or at least until She decides to give me something better."

"'She'?"

"The Scribe."

"Ah." Dakota had a strong feeling his utter lack of knowledge on all things subreal was blaringly noticable. "So, how well does the pay look?"

Why he was striking up small talk with a baffling person was beyond him. Especially since his bladder was protesting. But there he was, trying to strike up a conversation. _Yeesh. I'm getting infected by this place._

"I started out with nothing and still have most of it left."

"Ah. I have a similar agreement. I pretend to work. They pretend to  
pay me."

The Manager was about to say something else when a loud knock smashed on the wooden door. The doorhandle flew out of Dakota's grasp as a Nightcrawler dressed in full 15th century monk regalia shoved his way between the stocky Sioux and the oaken door. 

"I've found Jesus! He was behind the sofa the whole time."

_No doubt scared to death . . ._ ,Dakota thought. _And on that note, I think I'll go back to searching for the restroom._

Dakota backed out of the office as the Manager tried hish best to settle the pious monk's fervored cries on the holiness that was the couch. _Man, I'm just glad that most Nightcrawlers are quite sane._

"If I throw a stick, will you leave?" 

Dakota quickly turned on his heel toward the source of the growlly bark. There stood a Sabretooth, hovering menacingly over a tail-wagging Yankton. The puppy yipped excitedly and wagged her tail even harder at the attention. Dakota quickly stepped up and scooped her into his arms as Sabretooth let out a threatening growl. 

Yankton squirmed in Dakota's arms, trying to lick his face as he backed away. Dakota smiled apologetically as Sabretooth laid a steely glare on him. The Sioux scrambled away from the hulking slobberer and into the restroom as his bladder threatened to let go completely.

Once through the doors, Dakota looked down at the puppy in his arms. "You know, you are too much trouble, right?"

Yankton yipped, squirmed, and licked the bottom of his chin.

* * *

Dakota emerged out of the back hallway after taking care of business and making sure the coast was clear of disgruntled Sabretooths. He bent over and placed Yankton back on the floor before she shot off into the crowd. Dakota straightened back up and suddenly found a finger in his face.

"You! Off my planet!" 

Dakota looked from the finger to its owner; he stared right in the crazed eyes of a Deadpool wearing a spacesuit. Dakota looked back, nearly cross-eyed, at the finger.

"You might want to remove that from my face." Deadpool's finger didn't even waiver. Dakota sighed before grabbing the finger and yanking it down, bringing the space-suited mercenary mask-to-face with the annoyed Sioux. "Let me say this again, you might want to remove that from my face. For therapy is expensive, poppin' bubble wrap is cheap! You choose."

"There's bubble wrap here?" Deadpool sounded almost hopeful.

Without missing a beat, Dakota deadpanned, "Yeah, four doors down on the right."

"Oh goody!" Deadpool slipped his finger out of Dakota's grasp and skipped down the back hallway.

Dakota sighed and straightened back up again. _This place is just insane._ He rubbed his temples to assuge the on-coming train rattling through his head.He turned to head back to the table with his friend's around it.

He turned to come face-to-face with a blue-eyed giant squirrel. Dakota blinked in confusion and stepped back. Upon closer inspection, it wasn't exactly a giant squirrel; it was a man in a rubber squirrel suit. A man who looked uncannily like Longshot.

"Not many people remember that idiom here." 

_Oh boy. Sounds like a Longshot . . ._ "Idiom?"

"Yes. An idiom. 'Practice random intelligence and senseless acts of self-control.'" _Great. Not only is he a squirrel-suited Longshot, he's an idiom-spouting, squirrel-suited Longshot._

Both men stood looking at each other and said nothing. Dakota couldn't find a polite way to say "bugger off", and the Longshot waiting expectantly for something Dakota couldn't quite figure out. The silence between the two began to stretch out, though the rest of the cafe was still in full swing. _Gods, what a great way to first visit the cafe._ Dakota blinked. _Great, now I'm mentally rhyming._

* * *

The Cook hummed happily as he maneuvered around his kitchen. He hoisted a big pot of water atop the range. He flipped on the gas, for it was his kitchen and he would cook with nothing less. Grabbing the pan of freshly browned meat, he turned back to the big pot and carefully dumped the meat in. Setting the pan speckled with very tiny pieces of meat stuck to it aside, he stirred the soupy mix. As he maneuvered the large, wooden spoon around the pot, one of the double doors opened slowly, hesitantly. The Cook eyed it suspiciously.

A Cyclops stepped into the kitchen with a bottomless pit of needs and wants settled in the crook of his arm. The Cook eyed the purring mass of fur before lifting the big, wooden spoon out of the pot and shaking it warningly at the nose nestled under ruby quartz glasses.

"Not another step. I don't need," he shook his spoon at the calico. "_that_ contaminating my kitchen."

Cyclops' brow wrinkled as he awkwardly patted the hissing feline. The Cook absently noted that this Cyclops must have been a dog person. He had to have been feline-sitting for somebody. The Cook felt a stirring of pity for the beleagured X-Man.

"Look. Just tell me what you want. The faster you tell me, the faster you can leave and . . . unburden yourself."

"I'm not burdened." Cyclops petted the calico clumsily. "I like cats."

_He's a terrible liar. _The Cook grinned. "I like cats, too. Let's exchange recipes."

* * *

Fin? 


End file.
